church of football. He saw it as a job, not a way of life, and he was ready for a new, lower-paying one: a career in television, not merely as a sportscaster, like so many former jocks, but as a news personality. That morning, in fact, hè d been up be- fore four, in order to appear, as part of his apprenticeship, on the Fox News show "Fox & Friends," whose topics can range from Iranian President Mahmoud Ah- madinejad and handgun licensing to Donald Trump's feuds. One of his coaches had recently given him a copy of "Out of Bounds," the au- tobiography of Jim Brown, another run- ning back who walked away-in Brown's case, at thirty-to pursue a life onscreen, but Barber was more interested in talk- ing about history: Vlad Dracula, Viet- nam. ''You see that one up there?" He pointed toward volume on the bookshelf to his right: "The Secrets of Inchon," about the Korean War. "I started read- ing it because I was thinking about Gin- , d d " ny sa. Ginny is Barber's wife. Her father, Won Cha, was an officer in the North Korean military, and her mother, Nga, is Vietnamese. They escaped Vietnam twelve days before the fall of Saigon, and now live with the Barbers in Manhattan. Nga was in the other room, supervising Chason and his friend; Ginny had gone to the 92nd Street Y to pick up A.J., the Barbers' other son, who is four. On the floor in front of Barber was a red metal contraption resembling an oversized tackle box, with dials, and with the words "Game Ready' printed on its side. He explained that it was a cold- compression pump system, for treating muscle bruises and joint strains. As he described his weekly rehab schedule- acupuncture on Monday, massage on Tuesday, chiropractic on Wednesday and Thursday, massage again on Friday-it emerged that much less of his time was spent playing or practicing football than dealing with its aftereffects, and prepar- ing his body to be hit again. "I get worked on almost every day," he said. "And I have to, because I'm old." At one point, while shifting posi- tions, he grimaced and reached behind his back. "I have this huge scar on my hip that's just starting to heal," he said. "It's under my pants. I take my pants off after this game and I have this laceration on my hip, and I'm, like, how the fuck did 66 THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 29, 2007 that happen, you know? But that's just football. It's aesthetically detrimental." The apartment had suddenly gone quiet; the playdate was over, and now it was Chason's turn to nap. Barber lifted himself up from the couch and conducted a brief tour of the apartment, which in many ways resembled any other multi- millionaire athlete's home. There was a big trophy case near the entrance, and a flat-screen TV in every room except the kids' bedroom, which had been painted to look like the interior of Giants Sta- dium, with lockers and a "Let's Go Tiki" banner. In the master bedroom was a pre- schooler's drum set-"a lapse in judg- ment on my wife's part," he said. The walk-in closet (Tiki's is bigger than Gin- nys) offered a glimpse of his future, with a rack of thirty-six suits and "too many shoes for any man to have," as he put it. And, last, there was the guest bedroom, which had become the permanent resi- dence of the in -laws. He peeked his head in: Won was sitting in a reclining chair eating grapes and watching Korean tele- vision. The thermostat was set to eighty. "Geez, Dad," Barber said. Barber was hoping to doze off again soon-"My body just does whatever it needs to do" -but in a few hours he'd have to catch a cab to midtown, where, as further preparation for his life after foot- ball, hè d been taping a weekly radio show on Sirius with his brother Ronde, a cor- nerback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They called it "The Barber Shop." T he Barber brothers are identical twins, although Tiki is a trace shorter and, owing to the demands of his position, about twenty pounds heavier. Their father, J.B., who left the family when the boys were three, was an All- American running back at Virginia Tech. "This was back in the seventies, and everybody was wild and crazy," Ger- + II i aldine, their mother, says. "We had a friend who was from Mrica, and he told us the child's name should have signifi- cance." Ronde is short for J amael Orondé, which means "firstborn son" in Swahili. Tiki comes from Atiim Klambu, which " fi d ki " H means ery-tempere ng. e was an irritable baby. The adult Tiki Barber is anything but fiery-tempered. He is disarmingly nice, and speaks almost inaudibly at times. He is also a shrewd businessman, methodi- cal and calculating. He is invariably de- scribed (often by himself) as "cerebral." His manager, Mark Lepselter, says he used to joke that Barber has ice water in his veins. The secret to Barber's success on the football field is patience and tim- ing, of the sort that come with extreme self-confidence. Watch a recent high- light video: although he changes direc- tions abruptly, he is not explosive. He mainly leaves the impression that the de- fense has been sedated. When hès tack- led with notable vigor, he pats his adver- sary and congratulates him. Recently, he said, "I don't run fast anymore when I'm on the football field." He did not mean the comment to be self-deprecating. To account for his and his brother's diverging interests, Barber suggests the nature-versus-nurture debate. He and Ronde lived, for the first twenty years of their lives, in the same room-first at home, in Roanoke, Virginia, where Ger- aldine worked two jobs to support them, and later at the University of Virginia, where they both had full scholarships to the McIntire School of Commerce. They were inseparable and indistinguishable. Then Tiki was drafted by New York, and Ronde by Tampa. Now, ten years later, Ronde has five tattoos, drinks Crown Royal, and aspires to join the senior P.G.A Tour, while Tiki reads the Drudge Report, refers to haute chefs by their first names, and has acted in a couple of Off Broadway plays. "Ronde's a better ath- lete," Tiki says. "I'm just more popular." But geographical separation is not an altogether convincing explanation. Of the fifty-three players on the Giants' active roster at season's end, only two were Manhattan residents; the rest live in New Jersey, a number of them in gated McMansion developments not unlike Ronde's. A more plausible explanation may be that Tiki came under the influence of Ginny, whom he met in college. Until